PC Gamer Annual - UK (2022)

edition of Halo: Combat Evolved.
While that version is no longer
officially for sale, copies are still
easy to find online. And since this
article was originally published, you
can run this mod using The Master
Chief Collection.
The backwards pistol was just a
warning sign of things to come. The
sniper rifle? It’s, uhh, flaccid. The
shotgun has been replaced by a
blunderbuss, a slow-moving
hard-hitting projectile weapon that’s
just as likely to send you flying across
the map as it is to kill a cluster of
Grunts. And don’t get me started on
the frag grenade, which is now the
d20 grenade. As the name implies, it
has 20 different effects that deploy at
random every time you throw one.
Once I threw a grenade to try to
get myself out of a rough situation
while exploring the surface of the
Halo ring in the game’s second,
stunningly pastoral mission. Instead
of exploding, the grenade released a
small army of Flood, which
proceeded to kill all the Covenant
and then also me. Another time, a
desperate grenade throw did nothing
but spawn a small, encouraging party
horn, complete with confetti. The
Covenant, apparently, are not weak to
confetti. Who knew?
These design changes, which
almost exclusively affect weapons
and vehicles, are enough to turn the
familiar experience of Halo into
mayhem. Every situation where I was
once on autopilot now requires much
more creative thinking. Surviving
Cursed Halo is a desperate balancing
act that not only includes managing
enemy AI but also the significant
drawbacks of each weapon, many of
which are now liable to hurt you just
as much as the Covenant. Not all the
weapons are necessarily bad, though
they are all extremely silly. There’s a
new variation of the plasma pistol
called the magical girl gun, which
shoots hearts. The hearts are homing
projectiles and can do pretty effective

damage when stacked, making new

variants of Grunts and Jackals with

the guns high-priority targets, both

for safety and for the sake of getting

ahold of that sweet Sailor Moon

magic. Likewise, the Minecraft

swords wielded by a new Elite

variant? Shockingly effective.

GET SMART

What’s striking is how well the

existing systems in Combat Evolved

adapt to these changes. The AI in

Halo is exceptionally complex,

particularly for a 20-year-old game

built for the Xbox, and the enemies

you face mostly just... roll with the

changes. The enemies here, from the

ferocious warrior Elites to the

wimpiest Grunt, don’t behave like

they’ve been retrofitted with

weapons that they weren’t

programmed for. Instead their new

damage and aiming models just

become the new norm, and the

Covenant remain as dangerous as

ever. Though since they’re saddled

with the same weapons as you are,

they do often kill each other as

readily as they do you. Fair’s fair.

Even the cutscenes, which

apparently are rendered fully

in-engine using whatever assets are

available to them (like, say, magical

girl guns), adapt smoothly. Well,

mostly. The new weapons and

vehicles appear in the cutscenes,

which occasionally breaks the

scripting. In the intro to 343 Guilty

Spark, when you see Captain Keyes

fight off the Flood, he, uh, has an

accident with his backward pistol. It’s

fine! He’s fine! Everything’s fine here.

Cursed Halo takes the original

game’s refined sandbox and twists it

into a madcap paean to absurdity. It’s

a game now constantly at odds with

itself, the serious-minded space

marine shooting his way out of a

reality that is falling apart around

him. Projectiles screaming in all

directions, mainstay weapons turning

into flailing dick jokes and pixelated

memes. Not all the gags work – a bit

too many are sex and fart jokes – but

most of them do. Even the flavour

text and mission objectives get in on

the gag. During the nighttime raid of

Truth and Reconciliation, you get a

helpful piece of advice regarding

night vision: “Press Q to turn the

world green.” Well, that’s not wrong.

It’s easy to imagine a mod like this

being unplayable or inordinately

frustrating. And, at times, Cursed

Halo is infuriating. But it maintains

just enough of the game’s original

balance, and relies heavily enough on

the established interplay of systems,

that it remains a conquerable

challenge. Weapons do work, and

dominant strategies do emerge. They

just make no sense, anchored in a set

of rules that bear no resemblance to

any realistic combat ever waged in

games or real life.

The new rules work, and they

work because the base systems here

are so solid. The interplay that

Bungie created remains genius: guns,

grenades, and melee attacks all

impact enemies in different ways,

allowing for combat to feel wildly

different at different ranges, while

the AI is advanced enough for every

enemy unit to feel distinct. Halo is

full of complexities to nudge at, like

the way Elites tend to start climbing

on rocks and boxes when they’re

pressured, which a smarter player

can use to single them out. A Grunt

without a commander will still run

away. You can still find weaknesses to

exploit and behaviours to punish.

Games have a hard time rendering

absurdity in mechanics. They focus

on rules, after all. Subverting those

rules might make a game suitably

ridiculous, but it rarely keeps that

game fun to play. By relying on the

existing systems within Combat

Evolved, Cursed Halo strikes that

balance better than most

professionally made comedy games

manage. It’s fun while also being

stupid, absurd without being fully

broken. It’s a blueprint for how to

create this sort of game, building on

top of Halo’s foundation with

surprise and humour. This is the

excellence of Cursed Halo, and points

to the power of Bungie’s classic game

itself: even absurd, it’s still Halo.

MAJOR MODS, ANALYSED

MOD SPOTLIGHT

GO CURSE YOURSELF Some more ‘cursed’ mods to try

ANIMAL FACE

P A I N T F O R

XCOM 2

One look at you and

your silly cat-face

and Advent might

just pack up and

leave the planet.

EVERY SITUATION

WHERE I WAS

ONCE ON AUTOPILOT

NOW REQUIRES MORE

CREATIVE THINKING

DARK SOULS:

DAUGHTERS

OF ASH

Remember when

you first played

Dark Souls, and it

ruined you life? This

is that but worse.

SKYRIM’ S

CRIMES

A G A I N S T

NATURE

Twelve new Skyrim

races that are...

we’ll be diplomatic

and say ‘distinct’.

AEUHHH????

FOR DOOM

Home Improvement

texture/sound

replacement. Tim,

did you let the

demons into the

garage again?

IMMERSIVE

MADNESS FOR

MORROWIND

There’s a quest

where you help an

orc find his lost

butt. That’s all the

incentive you need.